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Facing Reality about the Palestinian Refugees

(Transconflict) Alon Ben-Meir - Many Palestinians continue to claim that the refugees' right of return is inalienable and that, regardless of how long it might take, they will never abandon their historic right. My answer is that the solution to the problem cannot be based solely on the Palestinians' perception of what is historically right or wrong, and that demographic realities on the ground cannot be wished away. Palestinian leaders have squandered every opportunity to establish their own state. They refused the 1947 UN Partition Plan, rejected the late Prime Minister Golda Meir's offer to return all the territories captured in the 1967 Six-Day War in exchange for peace, and refused to join the Egyptian-Israeli peace negotiations in 1977. Moreover, the Palestinians missed an opportunity to forge peace in 2000 at Camp David, and with the Olmert government in 2008-2009. Palestinian leaders have betrayed their people by perpetuating the refugee problem for personal political gains while depriving them of every opportunity to utilize their talents, creativity, and resourcefulness. At the same time, tens of thousands of Palestinians who left the country and studied abroad have achieved tremendous success. Palestinian leaders have had every opportunity to realize statehood, but they misled their people to believe that their salvation rests on Israel's destruction rather than on building the infrastructure of an independent state. Instead, they incessantly engaged in misleading public narratives about the right of return and how the day of Israel's destruction is near. In the process, they are destroying the social fabric of their own communities, from which they will not recover as long as they continue to hold onto this pipedream. The writer is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU.
2018-08-24 00:00:00
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